Teams couldn't agree on an alternative. So...

same nonsense as Australia retained for Bahrain.

Crazy

Where is the "Shoot ones foot" emoji when you need it.

To be fair, it looks like the teams had already settled on a return to the 2015 format but that option wasn't given to them.

They probably felt that Bernie was trying to railroad them (again) into whatever option he wanted and, understandably, they weren't having that so it fell apart.

Or the one for inserting a pineapple into a little old man's rectum.

Of the options the teams were given to respond to I think the option of the new Q1 & 2 format as is in Oz but with Q3 in previous format sort of makes sense to me. At least we won't have cars sat in the pits for the last 5 mins of Q3.
I an see that it could get confusing but it has to be better than what we witnessed last weekend.

It seems it's Sky only from 2020 too.

Not for the first time, I recommend reading the last few entries on Joe Saward's blog.

It seems as though the teams' and drivers' (or inconsequential know-nothing windbags, according to Ecclestone) resistance to the new qualifying may have paid off. The teamss were planning on rejecting the even-stupider "aggregate times" format proposed by the FIA and FOM and according to Joe Saward's sources (see here ) it looks likely that the sport's rulemakers will back down and sanction a return to last year's qualifying format.
I await with ever-decreasing incredulity the next way F1 will find to alienate fans and make itself look dumb.

Do you think Bernie sits in his office with a set of "how to screw up F1" dice and let's random idiot people make up the rules ? God knows it seems possible at the moment. I did send a couple of tweets to @fia asking just who is screwing up and losing the plot but doubt they even read them these days.
it was confirmed that we are back to 2015 qualy format on BBC news.

Tweets? To the FIA? My guess is that they have an unpaid intern to do "that social media stuff"; nobody with any influence there could even tell you what a tweet is. Same goes for most organisations run by (late) middle aged men.

I'm going against you guys here, it's introduced uncertainty to qualifying as the number of teams seemingly unable to grasp the concept of go as fast as you can as quickly as you can is staggering.

People forget that if a merc put a fast time in last year, the other teams basically threw in the towel too - unless they thought they could move up they saved the tyres.

I'd be for making them stay with the new - they just don't like being thrown out of their comfort zone

Teams are always going to be brutally strategic - and the new (now defunct) format was just dull especially as each session came to a close. There was more empty track than in the old 1-hour days. There were almost no cliff-hanger moments of two cars duelling it out against the clock. It was far more exciting when, after the chequered flag was out, 6,7,8 cars were out on a hot lap.

The tyre rule change has made a good improvement and mixed things up far more than quali. The races are long enough to mitigate the macro effects of quali - all it really decides in reality is 1 place higher or lower in the finishing places.

There's no racing now, we all know the first four cars on the grid regardless.

Any system where a Manor car can qualify 16th instead of 20th is worth persisting with.

One hot lap favours the most powerful teams, that's why they fear change

Now you're looking at it through rise-tinted specs. Racing is closer now than it has ever been. It's interesting when Sky show historic Grand Prix and the leader is often almost on a different lap to the rest of the field.

And quali positions at the back of the field make almost no difference. Manor are just doing a better job this year.

I don't think many people would claim that the 2015 qualifying process was perfect - because there is no one perfect system, depending on the objectives of the people in charge. But, given that the recently rejected 2016 model has produced no surprises at the top of the grid and very few that have made any difference to points allocation, it also hasn't achieved the stated aim of muddling up the grid or ensuring more action on the track. Fail on every account.
Something that - once again - has been ignored is making qualifying easy for casual viewers to understand; another reason why the aggregate system was also nonsense.

I guess quali' is counter intuitive to racing - the fastest doesn't necessarily win.

What about just reversing the grid based on the last race results?

Do away with it: just penalise the previous winner with a 10kg minimum weight increase.

That's a great idea barnacle.
They could use a similar system to the BTCC lot.

I remember racing used to just be on the Sunday

I think all F1 has been trying to do is make it a "big weekend event"
So they need everything to be exciting to sell more access to fans and tv

So just using a reverse grid of the previous race will never happen!
They will always try to make it exciting and this just did not work but I can understand the original thought process it Was just not thought through properly

Perhaps we need to do the mean average times that could get the drivers out for longer unless they do an amazing lap first time out! Perhaps the average of X amount of laps???

Average of best 10 laps?

No! No, no, no!

With average times, where is the mad, balls-out lap that snatches pole unexpectedly?

It just can't happen!

You would have to have really balls out mad times to tip the balance! But I admit it could be clutching at straws!!

That's why the weight penalty system could work.
The top 3 get a ???kg handicap for the next race
which could even it out a little.

Personally, I'd like to see what happens if you reduce aero grip, increase mechanical, provide tyres that aren't engineered to degrade and allow for racing at full throttle for the entire race. Oh, and lose DRS.

That should give a baseline of performance (most likely Mercedes finishing 2 laps ahead, but who knows?) from which tinkering could then be done gradually to even up the racing. Until the cars are actually racing, any messing around with qualifying just makes things more complicated with no certain benefit.

I vote for Jim Clennell to take over CVC Capital Partners.

Please no more artificial approaches, be that aggregate times, reverse grids, DRS or whatever. Weight penalties work in BTCC because its a pretty tightly controlled formula, where a physical approach to overtaking can yield results. And they race 3 times in about 5 hours. Its effectively a car-based entertainment, and they really don't want the same winner 3 times because its not good for the show. That's fine for BTCC and leads to good entertainment which fans will pay to watch. Super!

F1 is supposedly the pinnacle of motorsport. The show is the fastest car and / or driver being as fast as the technology allows. I'd really rather thats what we focussed on, not what semi-artificial system we can have. If we really want a level playing field then introduce control chassis, but I want a situation where teams can out-think each other at design stage and have an advantage as a result. Resist the temptation to complicate everything!

Here's my plan:

It's acknowledged that current racing games can provide a reasonable representation of what it is like to drive various cars around various real-life racing circuits. I've read that new F1 drivers often "drive" circuits they have never raced at in real life on consoles, gaining valuable information to prepare them for the real thing.

How about some of the world's best racing game makers (maybe a bit of spare capacity here ?) make a racing game based as far as possible on real circuit data, but make the cars/tyres, etc as many F1 fans are calling for to improve racing? Call it Formula None; big slicks, minimal aero, no DRS. I'd be happy to keep the new power units, but you could experiment.
Let's see what the best players (including some top racing drivers) make of it. Would it actually make for better racing?

Must be worth a shot.

Just tweeted Frank Sagnier (Big cheese at Codemasters) with hashtag #makeF1greatagain Well, you never know...

Just keep it the same with no power limits. Booooooost!

The problem with that is that you will go faster, but the aero-effect means there still won't be any overtaking.

Rumours around about a Saturday sprint race being considered in lieu of Qualy format, not sure how that would impact things or how you would set grid for this also. Just leave F1 alone people!